I don’t really have anything against AI art, MidJourney, StableDiffusion etc

But it’s pissing me off more than a little bit how so many people post AI art claiming it’s art photography.

I see a ton of it on Flickr. Average and mediocre photographers suddenly from 2022 onward start posting these wonderful images with flawless colorwork and super cool black and whites. Labeled as photography. But then you zoom in and realize… oh right. It’s AI. And this guy is a fraud. Damn.

Again, I have nothing against the thing in itself. But claiming it’s photography is fraudulent. And it’s super scifi nightmarish to have to constantly be on the lookout for what might be real photos and what’s AI. And worst of all, very shortly we won’t be able to tell at all.

What if I really just want to admire photography? Why don’t these platforms do something about this shit?

Anyway… would love to hear your thoughts about that. Cheers.

  • CptUnderpants-@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I suspect it will be somewhat like Champagne. You can only call it Champagne if it comes from Champagne region of France. It used to matter a lot until as good or better sparkling white was available from elsewhere. Today there is a certain extravagance and authenticity having Champagne, and some people try to pass their sparkling white off as the real thing, most people can’t tell the difference.

    Photography will be protected eventually, but once AI models can do as good a job in most cases it will become a lot like Champagne. There will always be some need for photography, but once they don’t need it for most things it will need that authenticity signing Leica and Nikon are adding so it can be proven that it isn’t cheap sparkling AI.

    • SugarHoneyChaiTea@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      I mostly disagree, though the future may prove me wrong. What I think differentiates photography from other art forms, in this case, is that photography necessitates real world context in a way that other art forms don’t.

      Wedding photography is probably the best example of this - I don’t think most people can imagine a world where AI generated art would be sufficient to replace a wedding photographer who’s actually present at a real wedding, because the real world context of the wedding is what makes those photos significant, not just the quality of the photography itself. This is true of photography in general - people tend to care about photography the most when it connects to their reality. Contrast this with, say, a drawing: most people expect that a wedding photo will be of a real moment that actually occurred at their wedding, but people purchasing a drawing of their wedding wouldn’t necessarily have the same expectation, and care more about the end result than the process or context of its creation.

      Now, obviously this only applies to certain types of photography. I think things like stock photography are likely to go completely extinct in the near future. But photography as an art form will hold its value in a very different way from other art forms, imo

      • CptUnderpants-@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        Wedding photography is probably the best example of this - I don’t think most people can imagine a world where AI generated art would be sufficient to replace a wedding photographer who’s actually present at a real wedding, because the real world context of the wedding is what makes those photos significant, not just the quality of the photography itself.

        I mostly agree. For me personally, photography is special because I’m aphantasiasic (no visual memory) and photographs can put me in the memories more solidly.

        But I think that we’ll see hybrid AI/real photography in weddings within 5 years. What I mean by this is the in person photography will proceed as normal but then all the photos are used to create an AI model of the event to allow the client to have photographs which may not have actually been taken. Models combined with photogrametry would allow highly accurate fakes.

        The negative for us as photographers is that it will lower the bar. The level of skill and experience to produce a similar outcome to a low end professional will be minimal.

        Much like my day job (IT) AI poses a risk that ‘entry level’ jobs will be mostly disappear. How do you get to be a mid level professional in either field? Being an ‘entry level’ professional and working your way up as you gain experience. The risk is that mid levels will dry up because there are too few jobs at the entry level to produce the required number of mid levels etc.

      • ten_fingers_ten_toes@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        No, but I can imagine a world where almost no wedding photographers exist anymore because most people will just take 10000 cell phone pictures, and run them through a style plagiarizer, and end up with 10000 “photos” in the style of some wedding photos they liked the look of.